Unless you’ve been hiding out in a pop culture-free cave, you’ve probably heard about the ongoing drama surrounding the Sex and the City 3 movie.
It all started when the Daily Mail reported that the film, which was apparently set to begin production soon, had been canceled due to demands made by Kim Cattrall, including that Warner Brothers would agree to produce several other projects she has in the works in exchange for her resuming her role as Samantha. Sarah Jessica Parker then spoke out about it, casting further blame on Cattrall for robbing the world of “this beautiful, funny, heartbreaking, joyful, very relatable script and story. ”
The plot thickened when Cattrall herself addressed the rumors, telling a much different story than Parker and Warner Brothers. Cattrall claimed she was never interested in doing a third movie. “And now, now at this very moment it’s quite extraordinary to get any kind of negative press about something that I’ve been saying for almost a year of ‘no’ that I’m demanding or a diva,” Cattrall told Piers Morgan on his ITV show. “And this is really where I take to task the people from Sex and the City and specifically Sarah Jessica Parker in that I think she could have been nicer. I really think she could have been nicer … I don’t know what her issue is, I never have. ”
But, of course, it doesn’t end there. Willie Garson, who plays Stanford in the franchise, has taken it upon himself to weigh in. “Dear fans, because I’m ‘toxic’, I’m going to negotiate a contract for 6 months, not come to terms, then say I never wanted to do it anyway,” he tweeted yesterday. It’s thinly-veiled dig at Cattrall, who during the same interview with Morgan, called the situation “toxic. ”
If it feels to you like a whole lot of petty drama for a movie that, contrary to what Sarah Jessica Parker and Warner Brothers seem to think, nobody really wants, then you’d be correct! There are a bunch of reasons why a third Sex and the City film should not happen – not least of all the fact that the cast appears to not be able to stand each other. Below, a few more reasons why we should all be bowing down to Kim Cattrall for preventing what was likely to be a cinematic trainwreck that sullied our memories of a once groundbreaking TV show.
The franchise has only gone downhill
You know how most TV shows sort of fall off the deep end after the third season or so? Yeah, well, SATC hasn’t been immune to that, we’ve all just sort of been ignoring it because nostalgia. The first few seasons of the show were seminal, but once the sixth season rolled around, it all just felt too overblown. The plotlines were crazy, the head-to-toe designer outfits were beyond unattainable, and don’t even get me started on the whole Alexandr Petrovsky thing.
By the time the second film was released, the franchise had completely lost the grit and subversiveness that initially made it interesting, becoming little more than a vehicle for our collective commercial aspirations. SATC‘s highly privileged, white-washed version of the world, in whicha black woman can only exist as an assistant, bisexuality is played for laughs,and thisnegligible weight gain is considered“getting fat” also has no place in the year 2017.
Carrie Bradshaw kind of sucks
This has been a hard truth for me, personally, to reckon with, but it’s important to do so nonetheless. While Carrie has a lot of good qualities (fun hair, great sense of style, a certain ditzy charm), shealso has a lot of really bad qualities (selfishness, obliviousness, poor financial management skills, an annoying obsession with the phrase “I couldn’t help but wonder”).
To keep perpetuating the lie that Carrie Bradshaw is awesome and that her lifestyle is something young women should aspire to is to do agreat disservice to a whole new generation of girls who think they can just move to Manhattan, write one measly column a week, and spend the rest of their time brunching and shopping for shoes. I’m not sure if people still believe this boldface lie or if the countless other articles on the topic have finally convinced them otherwise, but just in case there’s someone out there who thinks this is a reasonable thing to strive for, let me just say this: it’s not.
Carrie and Big’s relationship is not great
Speaking of things to not aspire to, Carrie and Big’s relationship is so messed up, you guys. I mean think about it: Dude jerks Carrie around for years,dips out to Paris, marries someone else, then cheats on that person with Carrie, then Carrie gets engaged to someone else (who she, surprise surprise, cheats on), then he randomly flies to Paris (what is it with this show and Paris? ) to “bring her home. ” Then, they get engaged but he leaves her at the alter. C’mon! They finally get married, but they’re still unhappy enough that Carrie kisses poor, long-suffering Aiden before Big buys her a ring and all is somehow right in the world. I CAN’T. I seriously cannot with the fact that this is a relationship we are all somehow supposed to think is terribly romantic. Listen, I get the appeal of Mr. Big. I’ve dated a Mr. Big.
You’ve maybe dated a Mr. Big. But here’s the thing about Mr. Big (and, for that matter, Carrie): He’s not a person you can build a real relationship with – one that is based on something other than butterflies and presents and BS romantic gestures. I suppose they deserve one another, but I for one can no longer pretend to be charmed by the whole thing.
The friendship between these four women is also not great
In its heyday, SATC was pioneering for many reasons, one of which was its supposedly realistic depiction of female friendship. But here’s the thing: Save for being there for each other during major life events like cancer and babies and being left at the dang altar, these women aren’t that nice to each other.
Samantha’s always interrupting everyone to brag about her sexual escapades, Carrie only cares about herself and her shoe collection, and they all laughed at poor Charlotte when she pooed herself during their sad vacation to Mexico, which, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t appreciate from myfriends. And don’t even get me started on the time they fat-shamed Samantha,prude-shamed Charlotte,and Brooklyn-shamed Miranda. Not cool. And these days, we have shows like Broad Cityto depict what real, ride-or-die friendships look like, sans shaming.
There are so many other, better movies to make
To look at what’s coming out of Hollywood these days, you would think that no screenwriter had come up with a new idea since, like, 1999. Seriously, how many remakes and reboots and sequels can we all really stomach?
I get that it’s expensive to make a movie and that studios don’t want to do so unless there’s a level of guaranteed success, but I’m sure there are a great many interesting stories out there that are getting passed over in favor of rehashing the same old tired tropes. Maybe Warner Brothers should produce whatever crazy films Kim Cattrall is trying so hard to get made! Why not? At least it would be something new.
